Reiss Elliott-Parris scored the winner eight minutes from time as our Under-18s began 2026 with a 1-0 home victory against Aston Villa on Wednesday lunchtime.
The striker got his reward for a determined, high-energy display at centre-forward when he thumped home Leon Myrtaj’s driven ball across the box, finally breaching Villa’s rearguard after we’d been left frustrated for large parts of the contest.
Indeed, we’d dominated the first half in particular and probably deserved to be ahead at the interval in what was our first Under-18 Premier League outing since the 5-0 win at Fulham on 20 December, but hadn’t managed to find a breakthrough until Elliott-Parris struck.
Villa could have snatched a point with their best chance of the game late on when Alfie Lynskey got in on goal, but the midfielder crashed his shot against the crossbar, just seconds after we’d hit the bar at the other end through substitute Myrtaj.
Nevertheless, we were worthy winners overall, with the result at Hotspur Way seeing us move level at the top of the table with Crystal Palace and Chelsea on 24 points, albeit having played more games.
Elliott-Parris was alive to an early ball into the box to test Villa goalkeeper Owen Asemota, while Miracle Adewole was also denied twice by the custodian as we sought to turn our control of the first half into goals. Tyler Tingey and Oliver Boast equally got into good positions after crosses from the left, but couldn’t connect at the back post as we went in at half-time still goalless.
Goalkeeper Dylan Thompson produced a vital close-range block to deny Markie Meade at the start of the second period after the visiting striker had picked the pocket of defender Tingey in our box but, while we didn’t manage to maintain control as much as we had before the break, we still carried a threat and Elliott-Parris was unlucky to have a deft effort ruled out for offside after Asemota had somehow saved Tye Hall’s deflected low drive.
Asemota subsequently tipped Oliver Boast’s rasping angled shot behind for a corner before the breakthrough finally arrived in the 82nd minute, Harry Byrne pinging a cross-field ball out to Myrtaj on the right, whose driven strike across the box was thumped home first-time by Elliott-Parris as he ran onto it in the centre.
Myrtaj went close to doubling our lead in stoppage time when his floated effort over the stranded goalkeeper hit the bar, with Villa almost hitting back straight away on the counter, only for Lynskey to hit the bar himself in a golden chance for the visitors. We saw the game out, though, to begin the New Year in winning fashion.
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‘A really pleasing first half’
Under-18s Coach Jamie Carr was particularly impressed with the players’ efforts in the opening 45 minutes, telling SPURSPLAY: “It was a really pleasing first half for us. We tried to set the boys a target around being really good out of possession, particularly in terms of our aggressiveness with our pressing and I thought, if you looked at the first half, you’d have seen a team that did that. Particularly the front three showed a really good effort to apply the instructions we’d given them. I just said to the guys, if you asked the opposition how it was to play against us at half-time, they’d have probably said it was a tough game. Overall, from that point of view, we were really pleased. The downside of the first half was that we lacked a little bit of quality in the final third.
“We felt that we should have been in front at half-time. There were bits in the second half that were positive, particularly the goal – I thought it was a good goal – but there were lots of parts of the second half where we’d probably say we needed to be a bit better, both in and out of possession. It came off the back of a difficult period where our game (against West Bromwich Albion) was cancelled last week, we’ve had some players with different squads throughout the last period as well and so overall, we’re happy to come out with a win and a good performance in the first half.”
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